Welcome back to the Corps

After a long Christmas break and relaxation time, I'm now back in the Corps. I had a good time over Christmas, went skiing, and tried to teach certain of my buddies how to ski. In the process, I got to actually relax with upperclassmen, instead of being a fish constantly. The trip to Colorado is a twenty hour bus ride each way, so we watched a lot of movies, did some reading, and slept as much as is possible on a bus. Breckenridge was beautiful, and we got an entire foot of snow while we were there. It was interesting watching the juniors and sophomores, since they were snowboarding instead of skiing, and didn't like powder very much in consequence.

I've been back here for about two weeks now, but it's only just now starting to settle down to a "normal" Corps experience, with a couple of exceptions. First was that Sunday marked 112 days until final review. If that doesn't mean anything to you, realize that I am in the class of '12. To mark this historic occasion, we had fishead day yesterday. Basically, we got to act like sophomores for an entire day. We were "chicken dropped" with our upperclassmen, meaning we could call them by their last names without saying sir, and we didn't have to run around in the hallways. Additionally, the sophomores did what they could to tell us what new things go on during sophomore year. It was a more relaxed day, and I learned a lot. Today's a bit more annoying, since Monday was 111 days until final review, and our sophomores are class of '11. Today, therefore, is butthead day. The sophomores ('heads) get to act like juniors (butts) for a day. Let me tell you, they're enjoying it a lot. They can smile and joke around us, and they're doing a lot of it. We're expecting that the juniors will also have their day tomorrow, but it probably won't be that much different.

This semester, I'm taking fifteen hours, the same amount as last semester, but now it's a more consolidated schedule. I actually have time to do things this semester. I will also have more free weekends, since there's no football games. Unfortunately, the classes I have are also harder (o-chem and cal 3) so I'll be studying more. Apparently I will also have more Corps responsibilities later in the semester in preparation for outfit brass (I'll tell you more when I know more) so studying is going to be harder to squeeze in.